Of the seven Indians in the field, the day’s best showing came from Shubham Jaglan, who shot 1-over 72 in tough conditions at Royal Melbourne Golf Club at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championships.
He was Tied-ninth after the first round.
“It was awesome. I thought I played pretty solid all day. The weather was pretty funny. I felt like every time I took my jacket off, it started raining again. I thought it was pretty challenging. The wind was there all day. I feel like I adapted pretty good to that,” said Jaglan.
The conditions, which included rain and strong winds, saw the other Indian players struggle. While Jaglan was T-9, Yuvraj Singh (74) was T-27, Raghav Chugh and Krishnav Nikhil Chopra shot 6-over 77 each to be T-51 while 13-year-old Kartik Singh (78) was T-62, Shaurya Bhattacharya (83) was T-98 and Vedant Sirohi (85) was T-107.
Kazuma Kobori of New Zealand shot 5-under after starting from the ninth, the starting tee on the back nine of the composite course at Royal Melbourne.
Jaglan, 22, dropped two bogeys in the last four holes but played smart golf and he was 1-under with four holes to go. But two bogeys in last four brought him 1-under to 1-over.
Three players, Australians Billy Dowling and Jasper Stubbs and South Korea’s Hyun Uk Kim shot 3-under.
Kobori opened with a par on ninth and then ran four birdies in a row and added a fifth on 17th, his ninth hole and then parred the remaining nine.
“It was a hell of a round. If you had given me five under at the start of the day, I would have taken that in a heartbeat. Very happy to finish with a 66,” said Kobori.
